As a founder member of Mystery Women in 1997, promoting Crime Fiction has always been my passion.
Following the closure of Mystery Women, a new group was formed on 30th January 2012 promoting crime fiction.
New reviews are posted daily, but to search for earlier reviews please click on the Mystery People link below and select 'reviews' from the welcome page. This will display an alphabetic option for you to find the review you would like to read

Recent Events

For PREVIOUS REVIEWS- Click on MYSTERY PEOPLE below -

Thursday, 23 October 2014

‘Murder on High Holborn’ by Susanna Gregory

Published by Sphere, 2 February 2014. ISBN:
978-1-84774-433-2

March 1665.War has been declared on the Dutch, so it’s a
disaster when England’s
new flagship, HMS London, is scuttled
on her maiden voyage ... and what link does this have with the death of a
fortune-telling courtier in a fashionable brothel?Secret agent Thomas Chaloner has two weeks to
find out...

This lively historical
who-dunnit has a huge cast of characters, ranging from Prince Rupert (dashing Cavalier turned
middle-aged grouch), through Temperance the brothel keeper and the wonderfully
crazy 5th Monarchists, down to Grisley Pate and his enormous family,
all drawn with Dickensian humour.The
atmosphere of Restoration London was evoked by numerous small touches: the
ever-present mud, the darkness lit by flickering torches, the abrupt changes to
country in what’s now central London.The plot moves along at a leisurely pace,
with corpses a-plenty, exciting action sequences and a satisfying ending.Although this novel is well through the
Chaloner series, that wouldn’t matter to a new reader, and Gregory’s many fans
will enjoy meeting the series characters again.

An amiable period romp.

-----

Reviewer: Marsali
Taylor

Susanna Gregory was
raised in Bristol.
After graduating from university, she spent three years in Leeds,
as an officer in the West Yorkshire Police, before taking up an academic
career. She has served as an environmental consultant, doing fieldwork with
whales, seals and walruses during seventeen field seasons in the polar regions,
and has taught comparative anatomy and biological anthropology. She is the
creator of the Thomas Chaloner series of mysteries set in Restoration London as
well as the Matthew Bartholomew books, and now lives in Wales with her
husband, who is also a writer.

Marsali Taylor grew
up near Edinburgh,
and came to Shetland as a newly-qualified teacher. She is currently a part-time
teacher on Shetland's scenic west side, living with her husband and two Shetland
ponies. Marsali is a qualified STGA tourist-guide who is fascinated by history,
and has published plays in Shetland's distinctive dialect, as well as a history
of women's suffrage in Shetland. She's also a keen sailor who enjoys exploring
in her own 8m yacht, and an active member of her local drama group.Marsali also does a regular monthly column
for the Mystery People e-zine.

No comments:

Post a Comment

About Me

From an early age I have been a lover of crime fiction. Discovering like minded people at my first crime conference at St Hilda’s Oxford in 1997, I was delighted when asked to join a new group for the promotion of female crime writers. In 1998 I took over the running of the group, which I did for the next thirteen years.
During that time I organised countless events promoting crime writers and in particular new writers. But apart from the sheer joy of reading, ‘I actually love books, not just the writing, the plot or the characters, but the sheer joy of holding a book has never abated for me. The greatest gift of my life has been the ability to read'.